Golden Globes Nominees: Disney Dominates, ‘Lion King’ Finally Acknowledged As Animation
For a while, it looked like animation tastes at the Golden Globes were diversifying: the last four years saw a handful of indie titles from Europe and Japan pick up nominations. Not this time. The category has returned to all-U.S. nominees — a situation that’s only happened once before (in 2014) since foreign films became eligible in the category.
It’s a stellar result for Disney, which picked up nominations for its three animated releases of the year: Toy Story 4, The Lion King, and Frozen 2. For the first time since 2012, the House of Mouse accounts for a majority of the nominated films. But the studio has dominated this award since it was created, winning in ten out of 13 years. The odds are good for an 11th statuette.
It’s worth noting the presence of The Lion King, which Disney, in keeping with its disinformation campaign, submitted to the Oscars in the vfx (and not animation) category. There is no vfx award at the Golden Globes.
Update: According to sources with knowledge of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Walt Disney Company submitted The Lion King as a live-action film, however the organization (correctly) recognized that it was an animated film and considered it for its animation category.
The last two slots go to How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, the well-received final installment in Dreamworks’s blockbuster trilogy, and Missing Link, a critical darling which underperformed at the box office. Neither comes as a surprise — both have already gained plaudits in this awards race. Missing Link is the only nominee that is neither a sequel nor a remake.
The biggest loser here is Netflix, which had high hopes for Sergio Pablos’s Klaus (the streaming giant’s first self-produced animated feature) and Jérémy Clapin’s I Lost My Body. The latter in particular had been generating considerable buzz, picking up a multitude of awards at Cannes, Annecy, and critics circles. This is the first year in which Netflix is making a concerted bid for animation awards. The snub by the Globes will dent its Oscar campaigns.
I Lost My Body is the year’s most high-profile European feature, but a few others, such as Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles and The Swallows of Kabul, will also be disappointed with the lack of recognition. The nomination of Mamoru Hosoda’s Mirai last year suggested that the Globes’ voters are open to anime, but the biggest Japanese release of 2019, Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering with You, missed out.
Disney picked up a further two nominations for best original song: “Spirit” (The Lion King; Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Timothy McKenzie, and Ilya Salmanzadeh) and “Into the Unknown” (Frozen 2; Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez).
Here again are the Golden Globe nominees for 2019’s best animated feature:
Frozen 2
dir. Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
(Walt Disney Animation Studios / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
dir. Dean DeBlois
(Dreamworks Animation / Universal Pictures)
The Lion King
dir. Jon Favreau
(Walt Disney Pictures / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Missing Link
dir. Chris Butler
(Laika / United Artists Releasing)
Toy Story 4
dir. Josh Cooley
(Disney-Pixar / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
The Golden Globes, now in their 77th year, are presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), a group of foreign journalists that covers the Hollywood entertainment industry for international publications.
The awards will be presented on Sunday, January 5, 2020.
